Educational Journey into the World of Creativity

On September 12 and 15, 2017 in Cape Town (South Africa), the “Eureka” Institute of educational policy (Moscow), with the support of the Russian Federal Agency “Rossotrudnichestvo”, conducted educational children’s and adult events: “Educational Journey into the World of Creativity”, “A Surprising World of Discoveries.” On a free-of-charge basis, South Africa’s pre-school and parent communities and pre-school and school-age children were invited.

The presented Russian innovative technologies (based on the conceptual theories of outstanding Russian psychologists L.S. Vygotsky, L.A. Venger, D.B. Elkonin, and others) reveal the methods of emotional and intellectual development of the child, significant for the early actualization of his abilities.

The events were cognitive and creative in nature and concerned activities that had a developmental significance for the child at one or another period of his life. Preschoolers made diagrams, drawings of various designs, using graphic images of details. At the same time, they developed a director’s play based on the leading process of this age—imagination.

Parents saw that the children sat not passively listening to instructions-tasks, and then obediently followed them. They were very active and changed roles many times. Just now the boy was an architect, and the next moment he made a paper binocular, tied a kerchief on his head and became the captain of a pirate ship built according to the drawing he had drawn up.

In this case, the teacher tells the children how some ship teams help others in difficult situations and simultaneously forms a picture of the world, while describing different countries, continents and oceans. And now the captain of a pirate ship hurries to the aid of a cruise liner, in which Russian dolls sail on a visit to African dolls. Poly-culture, polylinguality are the tools by which parents and teachers form the most important personal qualities of children—tolerance, acceptance of the features of culture of different peoples of the world.

Teachers noted the abundance of fantasy moves of children, and children willingly followed them in situations of finding new means of solving sociocultural problems. The reflection of the event convinced the participants that the play is the fertile environment in which the child becomes free and active, is keen on solving complex and important tasks that are not in the ordinary school. In such activity formats, the leading role of teaching is especially clear. The personality of a preschooler acquires valuable qualities—curiosity, activity, initiative, independence, the ability not to fall prey to difficulties, make choices, make own decisions.